Determination of prospectivity, plasticity and adaptive potential of new cultivars of spring barley from the collection of the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources

Abstract

In the north-western region, barley is the main forage crop. Annually increasing demand of agriculture in forages challenges to create highly adaptive cultivars which under the conditions of unstable moistening and low fertility of sod-podzolic soils are capable to give high yields with good quality of production, resistant to the most widespread abiotic and biotic stressors. The objective of our research was to create new genotypes of spring barley with high economic and valuable characteristics of productivity. The research task was to study new collection samples of spring barley Hordeum vulgare L. by productivity and the main elements of the crop structure and to determine the indices of ecological plasticity, prospectivity, ear grain content, resistance to lodging and to determine the share of the ear in the total length of the stem, which characterize the adaptive ability of a cultivar. The research material was 14 new cultivars of spring barley obtained from the Federal Research Center “N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources”. The studies were conducted according to generally accepted methods. As a result of the work, the best cultivars for all studied characteristics were selected: Suzdalets (Russia), Chill (Germany), Zhana (France). These samples will be actively used in hybridization to create new genotypes of spring barley.